Lesson 5 - Some Startling statistics

Guest Author - Sadiyya Patel

* Although divorced people may have successful subsequent marriages, the divorce rate of remarriages is actually higher than that of first marriages,

* Those who get into a live-in arrangement before marrying have a considerably higher chance of divorcing. Reasons for this are not that clear. This can probably be explained by the fact that the type of people who tend to co-habit may also be those who are more willing to divorce. There is proof that supports the notion that cohabitation itself generates attitudes in people that are more conducive to divorce, one example of which is the thinking that living together is temporary, and hence an arrangement that can easily be terminated.

* Qualitative studies and long term empirical studies have demonstrated that children develop interpersonal problems that become worse in adulthood, thus affecting their own chances at a happy marriage.

* As inferred from the previous statement, children of divorce have a much higher rate of divorce than children whose parents stayed together. The old adage that parents set the example is true in this case. Children learn about commitment and permanence from parents. For children of divorced parents, these concepts have already been undermined or shaken.

* No marriage is perfect. Using a large sample for research purposes, researchers learned that 86 percent of people who were unhappily married in the late 1980s, but stayed with the marriage, indicated that, when interviewed five years later, they were happier. In fact 3/5 of those who were previously unhappy considered their marriages as either "very happy" or "quite happy."

* A marriage counselor, after counseling hundreds of couples who were on the path to divorce, raised the idea of negative self-talk as one potential cause of divorce. This pattern of negative self talk, he contends, is a barrier to a couples happiness, much more than a lack of open communication is.

* Self talk means the silent chatter that is going on in your mind all the time. Sadly,most people do not control their thoughts (self-talk), but they allow their thoughts to control them. For instance, if a woman speaks negatively to herself about her husband and she permits this negative self-talk to go unchecked, she will attract a host of other negative thoughts. As a result of these negative thoughts, she will experience negative feelings such as anger, jealousy, fear, even hatred, and these negative thoughts and feelings will lead to actions that tend to destroy the marriage.

Sometimes, itīs not so much the lack of communication that leads to the breakdown (for after all, arenīt men less talkative and less spontaneous than women?), but the pattern of negative thinking that each spouse continually nurtures.

It is surprising to learn how often trivial the reasons are for divorcing, because their personal frustrations and unresolved personal issues are often blown out of proportion.